MattMaroon.com

Those of you who’ve been following this blog for a few weeks (all 5 of you) might remember the mailbox sagas. If you aren’t familiar read these posts. Today the story gained a new chapter.

The weather was pretty nice and we were playing outside with Link. Two of our neighbors were playing with their kids in the yard adjacent to ours and Vicki and I stopped to talk to them for a bit. Unfortunately I went in to take a shower (I’d just had a hair cut) and missed what would have been the funniest conversation ever.

One of the neighbors told Vicki that someone else in the area was constantly having his mailbox run over. So what did he do? He built a cement one. No kidding. Both of the neighbors who were telling the story seemed to think the guy was a complete ass. Vicki refrained from telling them about this here blog and my desire to build one that is not only made of concrete but packed with explosives.

We’re not sure exactly which house they were referring to, so tomorrow I’m going to have to drive around and look for the yard with a newly built cement mailbox. I’d like to shake that guy’s hand. And he might have some construction tips for me.

I noticed something coming home today. That girl who clipped my mailbox must really have been driving fast. I didn’t really think about which way she was coming from, but that turn is really slight and the roads weren’t that bad. Coming from the other direction I could understand it.

To illustrate let me show you this map of the accident, conveniently taken as it was occurring, that I found on Google Earth:

As you can see I probably won’t have to worry about cars from that direction hitting it again. The road curves north just past my house on the other side so they would be much more likely to hit from that direction. Good thing I saw that before I started planting boulders all around.

Well, I tried Googling for landmines but couldn’t find anyone selling them. Damn international peace treaties. Apparently you can adopt a minefield, though I don’t know why anyone would want to do that. I was part of a group that adopted a highway once when I was in high school and that wasn’t fun. It was bad enough trying to pick up used condoms with a pointy metal stick without having to worry about the ground exploding under me.

So apparently there isn’t any sort of commercial landmine company. Maybe I should start one. Acme Munitions has a nice ring to it. As far as I know the peace treaty only prevents the military from using landmines for anti-personnel purposes. It doesn’t say anything about civilians using them for anti-Corolla purposes.

I can’t be the only person who wants to purchase this sort of thing. I can think of at least a dozen uses for landmines in every day life. Rabbits eating the vegetables in your garden. Neighbors who keep letting their dog do its business in your yard (note that in this case the landmine is used on the neighbor, not the dog). Home security. Coworkers who keep drinking the last cup of coffee but not making another pot. I could go on all day.

I got excited for a moment when I saw this:

But upon closer inspection it turned out that none of those advertisers actually sold land mines. So much for eBay’s “Whatever it is, you can get it here.” slogan. They need to amend that to “Whatever it is, other than landmines, you can get it here”. I do have to give eBay some credit though, after a little searching I discovered that they at least had paintball landmines, which could be a hell of a lot of fun. Shopping.com had nothing at all. They suck.

Thanks to the magic of Google I found out that concrete mailboxes already exist. Who knew?

These look nice but I’m afraid they would snap if hit by a car. The center column is too thin. While I have no doubt they would jack up a Corolla (they weigh 500lbs) I’d like something that can take a blow and remain standing. I expect it to get hit annually, I’d rather not have to buy a new $500 mailbox every year. Plus it comes delivered on a pallet, and I don’t exactly have a forklift lying around, though I am licensed to use one. That’s right ladies, I know how to operate heavy machinery.

This mailbox is a beast but I don’t think they deliver. Plus it says “When set in place, it connects to a PVC pipe anchored into the ground. This provides minimal damage in the event that it is struck by a vehicle as well as provided greater overall stability.” I want my concrete mailbox to provide maximum damage.

Another idea I had not thought of is making a mailbox out of brick. HGTV even has directions on how to do it. That seems like a hell of a lot of work, but I guess if it can withstand a hit from a Ford Focus it’s worth it.

The one thing I don’t like about all of these ideas is their resistance to baseball bats. If you get a brick mailbox no kid is ever going to come try to bash it down. Every day I hope and pray some kid will come beat down my mailbox. If there’s one thing I remember from my childhood, it’s that the only thing more fun than bashing in someone’s mailbox is bashing in the new one they put up to replace the one you just bashed in. Meaning that if some kid ever does bash my mailbox, I know he’ll be back the next day to bash the replacement. And I’ll be hidden behind a bush with a pellet gun. If I get a big brick box I’ll never have the joy of popping a teenager in the head with a pellet, which hurts like holy hell for those who haven’t experienced it.

So after looking around a bit I had another brilliant idea. Why not get a big ass concrete planter and put a normal mailbox in it? Then kids can still attack it and it can wreck a car. Look at the planter on this page. That bad boy is 30″ high and weighs 2300 pounds. Plus I could fill it with rocks, rather than dirt and plants. What would it look like if a Civic hit that at 40 mph? I don’t know, but I want to find out.

Still though I guess I should keep looking for a taller one, just in case the next spider to stumble into my web is driving an SUV. Those are popular around here. Or maybe I should just look for something entirely different. Hmm, let’s see what Google has to say about landmines.

Wednesday morning I went to bed around 7 and right as I was dozing off I heard the doorbell ring. I figured it was just the UPS guy, who visits my house at least 3 times a week bearing gifts from Amazon. They really hooked me with that Prime membership.

So I ignored it, as I usually do when I’m awake to hear it (which is very rare), but after a few minutes the doorbell rang again. “Hmm, must not be UPS.” I took a look out the window and saw that there was no car in my drive way. I could see footsteps in the snow leading up to my door but I couldn’t see the front porch or anyone who might be on it. I thought it must have been someone selling magazines, a Jehovah’s Witness, or some other such nuisance.

After a few more minutes the bell rang again and I began to smell trouble, so I got out of bed and put some pants on. While I dressed I was looking out the window and saw a young girl running away from the door crying. That didn’t seem good.

So I ran downstairs, opened the door, and immediately saw the problem. From my upstairs window I hadn’t thought to look all the way up to the road. If I had I would have seen her Corolla parked in our ditch. And my mailbox laying on its side about 20 feet from where it should have been standing. The mailbox that I just bought a month ago to replace the previous one that, we think, was damaged from having been nailed by a car when the previous owners lived here.

The girl, who was halfway up the driveway by that time (we have a very long front yard) heard me and turned around. Her mother appeared at the same time and took our information. The next day I woke up to find that her father had come and reinstalled the mail box. He must have gone out and bought a post, then dug a hole (not an easy task with the ground frozen), and mounted it sometime that afternoon. Later the girl’s mom called me and thanked me for being so nice to her daughter and to offer her husband’s services should I ever need a handyman. I should have asked her if he refinishes basements, but more on that later.

This wasn’t the first time this winter that someone slid into our yard. I’m pretty sure it’s at least the third, since we’ve found a couple different sets of tire tracks over the last few months. We live on a big curve on a 45 mph road, so I doubt it will be the last either. And this has been a very mild winter for Ohio.

So I think what I am going to do is build my own mailbox entirely out of cement. I did a plaster cast in art class once, maybe I can do something like that but on a much larger scale. I want a giant slab, buried a good 10 feet in the ground, so that the next person who hits it in a little rice burner gets a lot more than a ding in their fender. I don’t know if such a thing is possible, I’m pretty sure it’s impractical, and I’m almost positive it’s illegal, but dammit I’m going to have a concrete mailbox.